DAMNED close call

[Spittybug]

Martin is correct. The LCA in fact fell into the now tilted wheel, thus grinding the aluminum somewhat. Not too badly though. The braces would not have had any bearing on this happening or the ultimate outcome.

I've welded a piece of steel that I wrapped around the "nose" of the LCA where it got a little worn down and frayed. You can't add too much or you lose your clearance between it and the dust shield of the brakes. I'm still dressing the weld and shaping the repair so that I don't have clearance issues and I think it is going to be a full success. I'll add pictures later.

[Spittybug]

All fixed.

• LCA fitted with a strip of steel around the nose, welded to the sides. Ground down to the original profile, but it is now a bit longer than before. Doesn't *appear* to be hitting the dust shield of the brake, but I will get it back up on the lift after a little driving to see if it needs trimming a bit. No obvious sounds or sensation of such during test drive.
• New Euro ball joints
• New grade 10.9 bolts for dust shield and hub mounting on steering knuckle
• New truck-bed-liner paint on steering components. Good tough stuff.
• New nylock nuts on all pivot bolts
• Everything torqued per spec, upper ball joints "guesstimated" since I couldn't get a wrench in there. Only tightened to the point where I could get cotter pin through bolt. Felt nice and firm with wrench.
• New grease in the upper ball joints. Lowers came pre-greased.
• Still need to get wheel balanced and front end aligned, but test drive went well. The passenger side tire shows more wear than the driver side; I don't know if that happened during the "incident" or if (more likely), it is toed in and is scrubbing a bit. Appreciably less vibration in steering, so something must have been awry before the bolt snapped. Stretched?
• Bled all 4 brakes, draining old fluid out and replacing with new. NASTY brown.
• Decided to do clutch too since access to my slave is now simple. EVEN nastier brown! I have been less than diligent doing this and am resolved to get it on the regular maintenance schedule. When doing the clutch I noticed the rubber line between the reservoir and cylinder looked floppy and it ripped when I pulled on it. Very deteriorated. Luckily, easy to replace with a length of good "transmission" fluid quality piece of hose I had in the hose bucket.

Looks like I'll make Coffee & Cars tomorrow morning after all!

[Chris 16409]

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that lower control arm would be salvageable since the nose piece was detached! I'm interested to see how the repair turned out. What made you decide to go against new control arms?

[DCUK Martin]

. Luckily, easy to replace with a length of good "transmission" fluid quality piece of hose I had in the hose bucket.

Transmission fluid and brake fluid are quite different - do check that hose is good for brake fluid too or it will eat through it pretty fast.

[Spittybug]

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that lower control arm would be salvageable since the nose piece was detached! I'm interested to see how the repair turned out. What made you decide to go against new control arms?

The nose piece wasn't detached, I don't think I said that. It did however get a bit worn down as it lathed the interior of the wheel. I had previously boxed and reinforced my arms and they haven't distorted in any way. The last picture is of the damaged LCA nose, but note that my original reinforcement around the ball joint is intact. The first picture shows the driver side one (left) and the damaged one after my repair. This was taken before it was fully dressed and made to look nice. You can see some black marker coloring on the right hand one where I needed to nibble away steel to get the right profile. You can't really see from these pictures, but there is no shortage of steel wrapped around the nose of these LCAs. The last shot is to show how close the clearance was between the LCA and the dust shield. This middle was a couple of years ago. After this refresh I've returned everything to black.

I decided against new ones only because of the success of the repair. I was already boxed and reinforced and have poly bushings in the sway bar mounting hole so I reasoned that the upgrade to the beefier LCAs wasn't going to be that big of an upgrade for me. I did buy the new EU club ball joints however and am still thinking about the reinforcing brackets.

Martin; thanks for the heads up, I'll watch it. I tried using the blue, fabric braided hoses that VW used (left over from my '79 vert restoration), but the diameter was too small. The old hose was definitely deteriorated, I'm glad I checked it.

[Squall67584]

Looks good! The powder coating looks pretty killer too!

[Spittybug]

Looks good! The powder coating looks pretty killer too!

Thanks, but actually the silver isn't powder coating, it was what I put on a couple of year's ago; Thomas' Stainless Steel paint over a coat of POR15. It's pretty good stuff, but as part of this repair I repainted with black truck bed liner. It never really looked right with the silver under there.

[Spittybug]

Took the car for wheel balancing and front end alignment today after getting everything all put back together. The passenger front wheel (accident one) is more that just lathed a little; the balancing machine showed the wheel to be pretty far out of round. When it pointed out where, it was indeed then obvious to the eye as the bead looked different and running a hand on the inside of the wheel you could kind of feel a bulge. So, per the instructions of the appraiser, I've sent him the documentation and he'll adjust the amount. It makes sense..... it must have been the horribly rutted road (Dairy Ashford for anyone in Houston) I was on earlier in the day. I thought my fillings were going to come out. Must have bent the rim and then maybe that added wobble was enough to snap an already stressed ball stud? I don't know... I need a CSI.

For the alignment, I took the relevant pages of my manual with me. Our book says .5* toe in, +/- 10 minutes. Firestone's computer however shows spec at .25* I called James at DMCH and he told me that they outsource all of their alignment work. I compromised a bit and we set it at .4* toe in. Given the nature of a nut on a threaded rod as a "precision" setting, getting 1/6 of a degree (10 minutes) variance is splitting the proverbial hair. While there is no ability to alter them, I at least have my numbers for castor and camber and would appear to be out of spec on these too. While these aren't adjustable, what would make them out of spec?

(Spec) Driver/ Passenger
Caster (3.5 to 4.0) 2.2 / 3.1
Camber (-.5 to 0) .2/ -.4

My passenger rear camber is -1 while spec is -.8 to -.3 Not far enough out for me to worry about playing around with shims. Read toe was in spec.

The tech was no rookie and he took his time and let me watch. Even torqued the lug nuts correctly. He was really enthused to work on a Delorean!

[Spittybug]

Just got a call from Hagerty approving the extra $$ because of the wheel. These guys have been very responsive and great to work with. I highly recommend.

Anyone got a good, round wheel for sale?

[Spittybug]

Got my wheels back today from RockyRoad Texas http://www.rockyroadstx.com/ refinishing. They look great. The background is the charcoal and the face is just polished aluminum with clearcoat. It looks like it is painted a light gray but it isn't. I'm about to go mount them (and yes, I marked the tires ahead of time... I'm surprised I remembered to do that).